The young women apprentices programme

The Young Women Apprentices Programme aims to include women into technical sectors that are mostly occupied by men. So far, the project’s first two groups gave 24 young women the opportunity to be trained and work as industrial electricians at MetrôRio.

The apprentices have 12 months of a professional course and 10 months of in-job training, with the possibility to develop a career at the company. MetrôRio plans to invest in these professionals, so they can become supervisors, coordinators, and managers in the future. The company designed this initiative after realising that only 9% of the employees in technical sectors were women, and we have the goal to change that number.

It was the company’s first young apprentice programme directed only for women, with the aim of valuing their work. Usually, the programmes aren’t destined for a specific gender, MetrôRio created this project specifically to address a gender imbalance in an area mostly occupied by men.

This is a first step for many women to reach leadership positions in the company and to develop their career in the industry. The Young Women Apprentices Programme is a way to increase gender diversity in the transport industry and expand their curriculums with a professional course and in-job training.

The programme is a mechanism to increase diversity in the transport industry with the participation of women in the area, and it’s a door opener for similar projects at other companies. There were more than 2500 applications of young women between 18 and 21 years old, without the necessity of previous job experience.

So far, the Young Women Apprentices Programme was responsible for the inclusion of 24 women. This project is an important instrument of development for the apprentices who intend to expand their curriculums, with the possibility to get hired by the company at the end of the training process.